You have received plenty of help on your question. But I am still concerned. Why do you need to do this with PROC SQL and not PROC SORT? If a Pointy-Haired Boss is making you do this, then you are stuck. If you are trying to get around a perceived weakness of PROC SORT, there may be any number of better alternatives than the route you are taking.

David -- David Cassell, CSC Cassell.David@epa.gov Senior computing specialist mathematical statistician